


Ghost's Apartment

by chronicAngel



Series: Leaves in the Summer [38]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Cheating, F/F, Jealousy, Kissing, Light Angst, POV Third Person, References to Depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-21
Updated: 2018-02-21
Packaged: 2019-03-21 17:05:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13745460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chronicAngel/pseuds/chronicAngel
Summary: I wanted to see if you kissed like me. If I could taste my lips on your mouth.





	Ghost's Apartment

Temari is beautiful; more beautiful than Ino, in all her vanity, has ever thought herself to be. Her slanted eyes like two jades are filled with an intelligence reminiscent of her lover, her hair like spun gold in twin ponytails, her lips in a constant pout that makes them look more full than they really are. Her waist is thin and toned with muscle as any proper shinobi's should be, and though her breasts are well-hidden by the looser clothing that she likes to wear, even Ino has found her eyes drifting. The Fourth Kazekage's daughter truly looks like a princess and in that regard, Ino is not surprised by Shikamaru's choice in mate. She finds herself once again dragging her eyes away from the other blonde and back to her drink, wondering why she let Sakura talk her into going out with the Suna kunoichi.

She is jealous. Ino has always been a jealous person and has grown out of trying to hide it, though if Temari has noticed, she is gracious enough not to say anything. Ino spent her actual birthday with her team, an annual tradition that she will cling to until her last birthday, and Shikamaru chose to spend the day after that with his girlfriend (the woman sitting next to her now), but it is still close enough to her twentieth birthday that going out for drinks was not a surprising choice of celebration. After all, Temari is three years older than her and thus has been old enough to drink since the war. Taking Ino out for a round, even if it is not her first, should seem like some sort of rite of passage the Yamanaka suspects.

"Did you hear that?" Temari says, waving a hand in front of Ino's face. She looks up into a pair of turquoises and wonders not for the first time what Shikamaru ever saw in her.

She does not look like Temari. She's heard people who have only glanced at them say that they do look somewhat alike, both blonde and fair-skinned, but in the Yamanaka's opinion the two are completely different. Temari's hair is the sand of her village, spilling only to her shoulders in the rare moments it is loose. Ino's hair is sunlight cascading down her back. Ino has said her whole life that her own eyes are diamonds, and she wonders now if they are truly more precious.

"No, sorry," she says, closing her eyes and faking a modest, apologetic smile. Shikamaru would see through it in an instant and immediately ask her what was wrong. Shikamaru is not here. Temari sighs and takes Ino's drink as though the alcohol might be to blame for her absentmindedness.

"Let's get out of here. It's too noisy." Ino doesn't think it is very loud at all, but doesn't argue when Temari grabs her hand and half-leads, half-drags her toward the exit to the small bar. After all, she has just as little reason to stay here as she does to leave.

She had thought once that Shikamaru found her refreshing, like a pool of water that follows you around. Now, she wonders if he wasn't diving only into nostalgia.

She stares at her feet when they walk. She's always been boisterous and confident, back straight and eyes ahead while she pushed through a crowd, but here with sake still burning her throat like medicine and the sun hiding behind the far-reaching treeline, she wilts. Shikamaru would stop their whole party, if there was one, to make her spill about what was bothering her. Temari only continues to drag her in a direction Ino suspects is toward home. Temari doesn't even look over her shoulder to see her face. Shikamaru would never take his eyes off of her, as though she were some piece in a museum that needed-- _deserved_ one's constant attention.

There are small puddles on the ground from last night's rain, leaves that have been falling from the trees all around them more and more in the past weeks floating on their surface. Temari avoids these puddles as though stepping in them would be stepping in something truly disgusting. Ino feels the wetness on her toes every few feet, her sandals providing little protection as she walks through them, still staring at her feet. She wonders if a puddle is something one would ever see in Suna, with the dry, hot weather and the sand to soak up what rain they would get. She knows that there is supposedly a "wet season" in the Land of Wind, but also knows that it is nothing like Konoha's wet season, where it is only common sense to bring an umbrella wherever you go so you don't end the day soaked to the bone and chafing from your drenched clothes.

When they stop in front of her apartment, Ino feels more like she is visiting a ghost. The little pots of camellias that rest in her window feel as though they have been grown by a stranger, the life in them feeling as though it belongs more in someone else's home than in Ino's. The chimes that hang in front of her door and catch the breeze on windier days than this one, carved in the shapes of little deer and butterflies, a gift from Sakura for her latest birthday, feel like only a hollow reminder of a person she should be (or once was) than the person she is now. It occurs to Ino that she is probably depressed. She knows that most shinobi her age suffer from the condition-- at least, most of them do now, after everything.

"Are you okay?" Temari finally asks, and Ino feels like one of the does that Shikamaru's clan has been tending to for hundreds of years when she looks the other girl in the face. She knows how wide her eyes must be when their gazes meet because there's something in Temari that looks so familiar. Warm.

She leans in like she has a hundred times before, only it has never been with the person across from her. _In fact_ , she thinks, a phantom pain blossoming in her chest,  _it has only ever been one person_. There was a point, once, when she thought it would only ever be one person. Now, her lips meet the only other person that that person has kissed and she knows how shocked she must be.

She doesn't pull away for a while. Temari does not kiss her back but does not pull away either, lips staying still against hers almost as though she is too surprised to do anything. "I'm sorry," she whispers when she breaks it, feeling broken herself. Without taking a step back, she meets Temari's eyes again. "I'm sorry, I..." She starts, louder this time, but trails off.  _I wanted to see if you kissed like me. If I could taste my lips on your mouth_.

"You're drunk," Temari dismisses immediately. There's no visible difference, no change in her voice, but Ino can tell that something between them has shifted. The world around them has moved an inch and they've stayed in place, both too stubborn to go with it.

She is drunk enough not to be sure if she is the one who leans in for the second kiss or if it is Temari. She is drunk enough that she only feels a little guilty that this is Shikamaru's girlfriend. She is drunk enough that she will let herself pretend this never happened tomorrow. It is not tomorrow yet, though, and she grabs one of Temari's hands to drag her closer while she steps back against the door to the ghost's apartment. Her cheeks were already warm with the alcohol and only flush with more heat now, with hands moving to her sides. She's never been a self-conscious person before and finds she doesn't care about her bare midriff now, either.

 _You kiss nothing like me_.

Her hand moves now that it has left Temari's to undo her hair, either hand grabbing the band for either ponytail. The Suna kunoichi's hair is much more coarse than her own, the darker shade of blonde feeling like sand pouring through the cracks in her fingers even as she gives it a solid pull. A small gasp of surprise leaves the girl and Ino takes quick advantage of her parted lips.

 _You don't taste like me_.

She can taste wit on her tongue, like her sharp words have left behind a trace over the years.

_You kiss like him. You taste like he did. Like intelligence is something you have merely been consuming all your life, sampling in moments of need, and now there is a permanent imprint in the lines of your mouth. Like warm comforts in the middle of the night are just another flavor and you have tasted it so many times it is beginning to bore you. Do you ever get tired of that taste in your mouth? The taste of kindness and compassion and intellect? The taste of someone who's always known more than they should?_

Temari's hair barely reaches past her shoulders. The ends brush against the open back of her dress and Ino's fingers rise to her spine to meet it. She can feel the way her back arches just slightly under her light touches, as though Ino's fingers are paintbrushes and her back a canvas, and the Yamanaka is painting her skin with sensation. She feels as though her feather-light caresses are silent secrets whispered into skin. Every graze is a guilty confession, every stroke an apology for crimes the other woman knows nothing of, and by the time they separate, Temari's skin will be a map of each and every one of Ino's sins. Lips moving against hers, Temari is the culmination of all of it.

 _I don't_.

She finally pulls away, face hot and breathing heavy. "You should go," she says, though the words feel heavy in her mouth. Unlike most foreigners to the village, Temari is not staying in an inn, and Ino is sure Shikamaru must be wondering where she is by now.

"I should go," Temari agrees, taking a step back from her. Their eyes don't meet this time, and Ino can already see the beginnings of guilt in those teal globes, a planet in each one with its own seas of emotion.

She knows in that moment that neither of them will ever bring this up again. She will carry it with her alongside all her other disgraces, marking it at the bottom of the list in her memory, but that is where it will stay. Her memory. Temari turns to leave at the same time that she turns to unlock her door and stumble inside, and Ino catches in her peripheral vision the other woman putting her hair back up. "It looks better up," she says right as Temari goes to grab one of the bands, and she thinks she might be imagining the pretty blush that spreads over the kunoichi's cheeks.

She crosses the threshold of the ghost's apartment and for the first time in a while feels like she is home.


End file.
